Field
Embodiments of the invention are generally directed to online communication. More specifically, embodiments of the invention are directed to techniques for managing the content of chat messages exchanged between users in online environments.
Description of the Related Art
Multiplayer video games and virtual worlds are popular forms of online entertainment, particularly for minors. Both provide users with access to a virtual environment where they may interact with one another. For example, avatars are frequently used to provide a graphical representation of each user present within a virtual environment and users interact with one another through their avatars. Users control the actions of their avatar to navigate the virtual environment, e.g., achieve gaming objectives as well as to communicate or chat with other users. Such an environment may be persistent where events occur and users interact with each other regardless of the presence of any particular user. Alternatively, such an environment may be game or session based, e.g., where a group of users participate in a match of a first-person shooter game.
User-to-user communication (i.e., chatting) is a prominent feature within these online environments. For example, a user may chat directly with other users present in the same virtual location by typing characters into a text-field on a user interface. To promote civility and safety among users, a service provider hosting an online environment may desire to prevent the use of obscene language or other inappropriate communication, particularly in online environments developed for minors. In such a case, chat software may filter chat messages by removing swear words, slurs, or other known terms of disparagement. However, simply filtering “bad” words is inadequate as inappropriate messages are plainly not limited to simply “bad” words.
Accordingly, in some cases, a chat interface may prevent users from freely composing chat messages. Instead, users chat by selecting messages from a predetermined set of words or phrases. One constraint of such a system is that the set of allowed words or phrases must be defined in advance. In such cases, however, users have to type a chat message that exactly matches one of the allowed ones (or select an allowed one from a list). In practice, this greatly restricts the expressivity of users within the virtual environment. For example, if the allowed messages includes the phrase “I want to play chess,” but does not contain the phrase “I want to play checkers,” the second phrase cannot be sent. At the same time, entering all possible phrases is costly, time consuming, and generally unrealistic.
To provide a safe environment, providers engage monitor and filter the behavior of guests, including monitoring and reviewing chat messages. At a base level, providers prevent the use of obvious profanity. The greater challenge is stopping offending behavior of a more subtle linguistic nature such as the use of an inappropriate metaphors or via spelling bad words phonetically across a line (e.g. “neh kid” to say “naked”). Offending behavior for cybersex, violence, cyber-bullying, and the passing of personally identifying information has proven difficult to identify in conventional chat filters. Additionally, online language evolves rapidly and it is difficult to predict words/expressions that will acquire pejorative meaning